Back from Nigerian wedding, mom faces judge

Judge sets bail at $275,000 in abandonment case

Published 6:30 am, Wednesday, January 30, 2008

A judge this morning set bail at $275,000 for a mother accused of abandoning her children to go to Nigeria to marry a man she'd never met in person.

Shanell Monique Mosley began crying and her knees buckled in court as prosecutors read details of the roach-infested home and the physical condition her six children were found in days after she boarded a plane for Africa to meet and marry a man she had been talking to for more than a year online.

Mosley, 33, is charged with child endangerment and abandonment.

Defense attorney Emily DeToto said Mosley felt betrayed by her sister who promised to come to Houston to look after the children. Mosley's sister never made the trip from New Orleans, because she couldn't afford it, investigators said.

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DeToto also said Mosley left a freezer full of food, three ATM cards with money on them and a car filed with gas. The trip, DeToto said, had been planned for a month beforehand.

"She loves her children," DeToto said. "She just wants to see them again."

Prosecutors, however, told a different story in court.

Assistant Harris County District Attorney John Jordan said investigators have learned that Mosley's six children, now in foster homes, were hungry and thirsty and some didn't know their own birth dates.

"The deputies who made the scene were horrified," Jordan said. "The 1-year-old was so malnourished, they could feel his ribs through his clothes when they picked him up."

When she left for Nigeria on Dec. 31, Mosley told her 15-year-old daughter that she would return in 30 to 60 days to their home in the 11000 block of Barker Grove Lane.

Mosley's children are ages 1, 7, 8, 9, 15 and 16, Jordan said. Investigators also found two other children found in the home — a 3-year-old and a 4-year-old the family cared for on behalf of a single father who worked, Jordan said.

No charges are pending for the father who may have thought he was just dropping his children with the babysitter, Jordan said.

Officials found a Lone Star food card, but it had a zero balance.

The 9-year-old son told authorities that he and the baby ate a still-frozen pizza for breakfast the morning they were discovered home alone.

There were no diapers, baby food or formula for the infant, no sheets on beds and fruit was rotting in a basket, Jordan said.

DeToto said Mosley worked as a baby-sitter. She also said there was no way Mosley would be able to make bond.